


Should I Stay or Should I Go

by The Tinglenator (Misha_McCarthy)



Series: Supernatural One-Shots [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angry Dean Winchester, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brotherly Angst, Castiel & Sam Winchester Bonding, Castiel & Sam Winchester Friendship, Castiel Takes Care of Sam Winchester, Character Study, De-Aged Sam Winchester, Drabble, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, POV Castiel (Supernatural), POV Male Character, POV Third Person Limited, Protective Castiel (Supernatural), Protective Dean Winchester, Protectiveness, Scared Sam Winchester, Short One Shot, Worried Castiel (Supernatural), Worried Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:26:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25942081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misha_McCarthy/pseuds/The%20Tinglenator
Summary: Trouble strikes after the brothers' fall out on the bridge in 9x10. Between Dean not answering his phone and Sam being de-aged, Castiel is left to make one hefty decision: chase after Dean, or hope he can find a solution in the bunker. AU one-shot.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel & Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Supernatural One-Shots [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1877215
Kudos: 26





	Should I Stay or Should I Go

Castiel had to back away from the procedure. He found himself in the bunker's kitchen, still able to hear Sam's grunts of pain. Knowing that Sam was used to pain, and that this was torturous enough to make him show his displeasure, only served to make him feel worse about the whole ordeal. Humans already had so many things to deal with; he had just been experiencing those things himself. Besides spending a third of the day sleeping, one could spend so much time staying clean, eating, and his least desired practice, urinating. Sam didn't deserve this. Castiel had ruined everything.

The angel was still deep in thought about stretching his faults to the utmost; if he had not trusted Metatron, Gadreel wouldn't have fallen, and he might have been able to heal Sam directly without this possession business. The thing that interrupted Cas' mournings wasn't Sam's continued utterances; it ended up being the lack of such. His eyes were drawn to a brief light that came from the hallway and faded after a drawn-out moment. Castiel, now wingless, rushed through the old halls towards the living area. By the time he got there Sam was gone.

There was evidence he had sat there; hell, the chair was still lined with sweat. "Sam?" he called in weak hopes. His voice bounced off the walls, but received no answer. His trenchcoat lagged behind as he dashed from one room to another, double-checking any possible exits. Nothing had been touched, and the bunker's system had reported no problems. The younger Winchester he’d been supervising had simply vanished.

Cas finally came to the breaker room and refused to leave a stone unturned. The door was slightly ajar, but that was fairly normal for most rooms in the area. He supposed the brothers didn't enjoy feeling too distant from each other. Until now, that is. Now Cas could hardly reach Dean, and Sam pretended as though his brother didn't exist. The moment near the bridge had wrenched his heart. Both brothers were right, both brothers were wrong, and neither would admit it.

As he pushed open the door, a little whimper from the lower level died out. "Sam?" Cas heard himself say. But the Winchester didn't _whimper_. He was a thirty-year-old, headstrong, plaid wearing man. Sam smiled, but he didn't cry.

As the angel neared where he thought the source was located, he finally rounded the corner of the mini-staircase and caught sight of what had to be the weirdest intruder. Curled up into a ball by one of the furnaces was a little boy who couldn't have been older than four years old and was peering at Cas between his legs through red-rimmed eyes.

Though unaided in his angelic nature (which should have seemed paradoxical), Cas came to crouch by the boy and put a light hand on his shoulder. The angel blade he had tucked up his sleeve was colder than normal. Castiel would never have forgiven himself if he had accidentally used it on so innocent a person as the child appeared to be. As it was, he was still unwinding from a battle stance. "Are you alright?" he asked, perhaps sounding awkward but entirely filled with emotion.

The four-year-old shrank away from his hand, sniffed, and refused to move further. It was then that Cas noted the clothes: they were oddly serious for children's clothing.

In a moment of silence, the boy looked back up and broke into more tears. "I-I just want _Dean_!" he cried. He unfurled his arms from his knees and back up against the wall, as if he could move away from Cas further.

"Dean?" Cas repeated. There was no way Dean was associated with any children, and certainly not the extent where they asked for Dean before a parental figure.

But the child just nodded with trembling lips, and stared at Cas with the conviction that he could find him a man who was probably conspiring with all sorts and attempting to kill one of Hell's most powerful demons. Little arms wrapped around the boy's legs again when Cas' face scrunched up. "I wun my brother," he murmured.

"Your-?" How could he not have put it together sooner? It wasn't the most obvious choice by far, but with the range of spellcasters who might have it out for the younger Winchester, Castiel could hardly see it being anything but a spell. "Dean's not here right now. Why don't-"

"Then I want _Daddy_ !" The screech put Cas in a daze for a minute. Then it dawned on him: was there a spell to reverse this? How common were transformative spells of this magnitude? Not very, he concluded. He had never even heard tales of such things. The likelihood of the Men of Letters providing a _safe_ way past it was almost guaranteed not to exist. So, what then? The Winchesters' father had been dead before Castiel came into contact with them. Dean may or may not pick up the phone for days on end. He wouldn't be stuck with a screaming child for weeks, would he? Could Sam be condemned to relive his life if he didn't act quickly enough? "Deeean!" Sam's wail continued.

Right. Dean. Find Dean, fix whatever this was. Dean was quite gifted at handling odd situations like this. He had his number on speed dial.

"This is Dean's other, other cell, so you must know what to do."

Voicemail. Shit. "Dean, it's me. There's a situation…" He took a breath. "Sam is in trouble. There may not be time to waste, so I'm going to attempt to remedy things immediately." He caught the eyes of an abnormally young Sam and realized that although the message might not reach Dean, Sam would definitely hear it. "I know you'd rather…. Please, just come to the bunker as soon as you get this." He slid the phone back into place and watched it, as if Dean was about to change his mind and call him.

"What is that?" came a little, slightly strained voice.

Cas looked over. "A phone."

"Did ya call Dean with it?"

"Yes." He stood up, shoving the device into one of his many pockets.

Though Sam was put off by the angel's curtness, he continued to look up without breaking into sobs again. "Are you Daddy's friend?"

"I…" Cas glanced around the bunker. "I guess so."

At the partly-affirmative answer, Sam stuck out his arms as if looking for a hug, but he didn't say anything.

Of course, this confused Castiel more than the idea of deep frying butter sticks.

The four-year-old waved his arms a bit. "Pick me up?"

He stole one more glimpse around the backroom and then grabbed the boy by his armpits and hoisted him onto a hip. Sam instantly became clingy, grabbing onto his neck and nestling his chin into his shoulder. Cas' mind had already moved onto greater things- what was he going to do now? He supposed he could search the Men of Letters' extensive library, but that could take any number of days without results. Sam would need sustenance, among other possibilities. He drew his neck back to try and look at the boy, who was holding on to Cas more than Cas was him. "Sam, Dean's going to be a while. Do you need anything?"

Sam looked up and shrugged.

"Would you like some food?"

He shrugged again.

Castiel walked them over to the main living area and groaned slightly as he let Sam down. The child, though small, weighed a lot. He decided that Sam would probably be fine in the bunker for less than an hour by himself while he got food. They had been alone many a time when they were younger, right?

He opened the weighty bunker door and was greeted with the fresh scents of night.

As Cas left for his new car, he disregarded the beauties of nature and any suspicious activities in his peripheral. There were food options to choose from. Hot dogs? Candy? Beer? The last one sounded especially good.

He was going around the side of the beige car when reflections of people appeared on its paint. It was a man and a woman clearly coming to jump him; Castiel felt the cold angel blade slide down his arm as he turned in place. In situations such as these, there was no time for hesitation, though Castiel knew that he should be more cautious when it came to acting on impulse. Black eyes confirmed his suspicions; the bunker was in the middle of nowhere. It was a planned assault. His knife missed the woman's neck by a few inches, and Cas was aware that there was a fist coming before he saw it. In a few seconds, a bit of maneuvering, piercing, and battle-grunting resulted in her body falling to the ground.

The other demon eyed the situation- but mostly the blade- and decided he wasn't taking his chances. "Wait," he begged with his hands up. In one was a vicious knife, though Castiel didn't recognize the design much. "We didn't come for an angel."

"Then what did you come here for?" Cas demanded as he noticed the gear this demon was totting.

"We were told tooo… cast a spell, gather some info, y'know?"

"I wasn't aware such demons could cast spells." Cas' stance became easier as he drew closer, leading the demon in a round-about way back to the car so that the demon would have a wall behind him.

"Where do you think most witches get their power from?"

The angel dismissed his egotistical question. "Did Abbadon send you?"

"Well…" He stiffened as his back met the cool metal of Cas' car.

There appeared a knife at his throat. "Tell me."

"Who else? All Crowley does is frolic with the Win- hunters. And angels." The demon used a mocking tone for the last comment, eliciting a small cut into his throat.

"Good save." Castiel rarely talked back in such a way. It almost made him feel good, if he thought about it. "But you only cast the spell on one person."

"We knew there was only one Winchester inside."

Before Cas could continue, the demon was wrestling for the blade. In the heat, the man was capable of prying it out of his fingers, but Castiel used his newly gained leverage to topple him over and pin him down. "So you know where Dean is?"

"I didn-"

"Where is he?"

Cas let a finite amount of blood spill over from the demon's neck, forcing gasps. He was on guard for when black smoke arose out of the man's mouth, and was able to rein it back in. The question was repeated.

It was just as Cas feared: he could only elicit a vague answer and stabbed the demon through the heart as thanks. Though the spellcaster had been killed, the spell was certainly alive and kicking, and Cas found out the hard way when he saw what Sam had been up to.

**OOO**

It had only been, what? Cas estimated five minutes at the maximum. The little boy had already begun taking out precious maps, scattering files, and letting books fall to the floor. He arrived in the kitchen just in time to see an array of odd food choices lining the counter and Sam trying to open a massive jar of peanut butter. "What are you doing?" Cas' voice rose an octave from his normal gravelly tone.

"Was hungry," Sam murmured.

Castiel scooped him up with a huff. There was no way he was cleaning all of this up right now; it would have to wait until everyone's well being was assured. He knew he couldn't very well demand that Dean stop conferring with Crowley, as indeed it seemed he had done again, but he was sure Sam's safety would at least put Dean on hold. The charmed Sam made no resistance as Cas carried him at his side to the car and slapped him into the passenger seat. He even looked around in amazement while Cas put it into gear. "It is going to take a long time to get to Dean, so if you need food, or water, or clothing, tell me," Castiel instructed as he awkwardly managed to get the car on the right side of the road.

"I can sit in the _front seat_?" He asked as he bounced up to the nearest window, utterly lacking a seatbelt.

"Yes, but- please sit down." His brows slowly furled into confusion. He wasn't sure how to handle a child of this age. Babies knew nothing but instinct, and humans as young as their twenties had taught Castiel something he would never have considered possible. But where a four-year-old stood in terms of wisdom and of the ability to comprehend was what made Castiel hesitate to say anything.

Sam was energetic where he "sat" for a while, but nothing came of it. Cas hit the gas and steeled himself for at least five hours of driving. If Dean didn't call him back by then he was sure he'd come up with something.

**OOOOO**

After a fourth stop because Sam needed the bathroom, or orange juice, or donuts, Cas checked his phone. For all the time they lost, progress had been made, and he was starting to worry that Dean may not call him back.

A glimpse at his call history showed that Dean had already called about five hours ago, and left a single voicemail. Cas tried to listen to it. He clicked it multiple times, as he didn't think he had it working. The long pause it began with was of dead silence. "If you think it's that important, I'm on my way. Just fair warning, though? If this is a trick to get us in the same room again Sam’ll be way more pissed than me." There was more silence. "Call me. Tell me what it is." Then there was a click.

Castiel wasn't sure how he had missed it. Had he been fighting the demons? Did he stop the phone from making sounds like that other time? He eyed the device and decided he didn't have time for human inconsistencies. Sam was already jumping into his new favourite seat. They had to catch up to Dean- who might already be at the bunker- and they had to do it now.

**OOOOO**

Cas hauled Sam out of the car and threw open the front door to the bunker. It was empty. He ran about calling for Dean, and made sure to keep Sam on a tight leash. Nothing would be of use if he was incapable of tracking down either brother.

_Left for National Institute of Antiquities. Kansas City, MO. 778-220-XXXX if you actually need help._

Cas ripped the sticky note off the desk in anger. The number was probably for some random hunter the brothers had met ten years ago, but this wasn't some run of the mill werewolf hunt- it was an intricate spell affecting Sam, his _brother._ They needed Dean to be a part of this.

He took out the stupid phone again and dialled.

"Hello?"

"Dean." Cas opened his mouth to say more, but his attention was caught by Sam rounding a corner, on his way to create more trouble.

"Look, Cas, I'm busy right now. Did you try the number I left you?" His tone was instantly drowned in bitterness.

"No-"

"Call it first." Cas thought he heard someone else beginning to say something to Dean, but it was cut off by a loud tone.

This was all a misunderstanding. Dean had probably arrived, and was upset he had come back to nothing. Castiel knew he himself had felt that way when the Impala was nowhere to be seen. If he could only get to Dean, face to face, everything would work itself out. But first, to catch the rampaging four-year-old.

**OOOOO**

It wasn't incredibly difficult to find the location of the Institute. Castiel would have called the elder Winchester a second time if they were in better standing. For now, he could only hope that Dean would seek a place to stay for some time and allow Cas to catch up. They were getting into the city when Cas' phone began to buzz. The screen lit up the inside of the dark vehicle and prompted Sam to snatch it up.

"Don't do that!" Castiel tried to look over from the road and take it away. The little boy struggled to read the screen, and finally found out that it could slide down. The bugger was quick to hit the greenest button he could find.

"Cas?" the angel heard from its speakers as Sam plopped the metal to his cheek.

"No, he's driving." Sam almost sounded pleased that he'd managed to keep the phone away from Cas.

"Sam, give me the phone," Cas ordered, still trying not to crash the car as they went down the main street of the city.

"Who is this?"

"It's Sam…" the boy said, completely ignoring the only person who had been taking care of him.

Cas took Sam's little arm and pulled him closer, making him squeak. In Sam's momentary confusion, and possibly (extremely minor) pain, Castiel reached over him and grabbed the phone. "Dean. Where are you?"

"Who was that?" Dean challenged.

"This is… the problem I mentioned earlier."

While the call went quiet, Cas whirled the steering wheel around and slammed the car into park at a Five Guys. Sam was glancing up with red eyes again as Dean regained his voice. "Is he okay? Who did this to him?"

"Some demons of Abbadon's. He is currently located in my car, and has sustained no injuries." Cas heard Dean swearing. "I'm at 'Five Guys'. Can we talk of this in the same building?"

"Yeah, yeah." Dean seemed to be thinking about multiple things at once. "You just came from the bunker? I think I know where you are. I… I'm coming. Stay there."

Castiel slid the phone down and turned it off. "Are you hungry?" he asked wearily.

"Not really," Sam softly replied.

**OOO**

Dean held Sam on his lap as the younger brother began to doze off. Usually, Sam took up more space than Dean and could appear menacing without even intending to. Now he seemed frail against his big brother. "Sorry, Cas," Dean said, almost in a whisper. "I wasn't sure what to believe."

The angel didn't know an incredible amount about humans, but he knew enough to figure out that Dean's words weren't really for him. They were for the brother that was currently lost to the world.

"It could be a temporary thing, but the one who cast the spell is dead, and I'm not very sure."

Dean nodded and kept his voice down for Sam's benefit. "While searching for the First Blade I found out it was sold to this 'Magnus' guy, and I'm pretty sure the name was Men of Letters code. So if there's still an old member out there somewhere, he's probably the best person to be able to help Sam."

Cas looked at the closed laptop on the table, as well as the giant cheeseburger that was still in its wrapping. "But you're not certain if it really is a Man of Letters."

"I am," Crowley said with a smile beside Cas. He nigh on made the angel jump, but that was a hard thing to do. "All of the American Men of Letters died in that fire, thanks to Abbadon. One guy was fired not too long before the attack… I guess he still thinks he's cut out for the practice."

"How do you know this?" Castiel asked angrily. He wanted nothing to do with the King of Hell.

"I tried to track him down, once. I thought he'd know how to get into that wretched bunker of yours, but it turns out he likes hiding. I could show you where he was last seen."

"He should be dead," Cas countered.

"Indeed." The demon shrugged, as though answering one of the men who might save his life didn’t mean anything to him. "But since nobody else survived or left their descendants knowledge of such a pain in the ass organization... I say we find where this man disappeared to."

Dean pried his eyes away from Sam. "We're not going anywhere with you just to be led into a trap, but thanks."

Crowley scoffed. "If you want to find your 'Magnus' friend, I'm your ticket. Otherwise…" He made a head motion towards Sam, who was entirely unconscious.

"You'll take _me_ to his hideout." Dean declared. "Cas, you take care of Sam."

Castiel's eyes pleaded for there to be a different way. The little boy had been nothing but energetic trouble. "I should go with you, Dean."

The elder Winchester looked down again. There were risks either way. Right now, though, he thought he felt as tired as Sam.

**OOO**

After the brothers managed to sleep for a while, the four were off in the Impala. No one liked it at any level. Even Sam just stared out the windows in the passenger seat, and finally stopped asking about why Cas was sitting in the back with another man he'd never seen before. In fact, he'd stopped asking questions as a whole. It was weird.

When they finally got there, Cas was told to look after Sam while Dean went up to knock on some hundred-year-old guy's door. The angel wasn't surprised when Crowley ended up making his way back to the Impala as well. They shared a look of 'helpers who were left behind' and refused to acknowledge each other's presence. After a while, it was hard to stand.

"Can't you just negate the spell on Sam?" Castiel asked the open air.

"Perhaps," Crowley said in answer to the surrounding forest.

Cas wheeled around to finally face him. "Then why didn’t you bring that up in the first place?"

The demon shrugged. "The sooner we find the First Blade, the better."

"Fix him!"

Crowley eyed the angel up and down for a long moment. "You wouldn't happen to have a few ingredients, would you?"

Cas glanced at the trunk. He'd need to make sure Crowley couldn't get to anything while he had it open. "What do you need?"

Dean was against a pillar, bound by odd golden chains. The living room in this guy's invisible mansion thing was nutzo enough with all its openly aired skulls and twenty thousand globes. He didn't want to see what the guy slept with at night.

It was then that Sam (regular, barn-sized Sam) walked in driving a shapeshifter forward with his blade, followed by Cas. Dean knew it to be a shapeshifter because the real witch-man-guy was standing on the other end of the room. "No, wait-" he called.

It was too late. The creature reverted to another form, and by the time Dean's brother had killed it, 'Magnus' had pulled a gun. Castiel strode forward with confidence only to be pushed to the opposing wall. Sam became locked in place due to a magic that didn't even need speaking, and a knife brushed up against his cheek. The registering emotion on Dean's face had no chance of going unnoticed.

"Important person to you, huh?" Cuthbert Sinclair asked with malice. "I think you'll persuade Dean to my side much faster than some tiring magic."

"Magnus, I swear to God-" Dean tried to snarl, bound in such chains as he was.

"What? What are you going to do?" He turned to Sam. "What is he going to do? Huh?" Sam tried to hide the pain as the large knife Sinclair carried opened a gash near his jaw. Then there was a following cut on his neck. "I am going to make you suffer… unimaginably!" he declared with a chuckle.

It was then that falling chains caught his attention. Castiel, whom he knew not to be an angel, was still wrestling with the kinetic energy holding him at bay. But the pillar which originally restrained Dean was laced with empty chains. Sinclair hardly knew what was happening before his head was lopped off, and Sam and Cas were released from their magical confines.

The still-older Winchester regarded the body, but his attention was for the First Blade he held in his right hand. It was shaking, he was shaking, maybe the world was shaking. Dean wasn't sure at that point. He felt the transferral of energy between the Mark and the First Blade. When he first held it, the feeling had terrified him. It was a burning sensation, but it was cold and electrifying. He couldn't describe it. It remained that way, but it felt… nicer.

Then he finally felt two hands on either shoulder. "Dean," Sam said.

What did he say? Dean looked up. He didn't even notice Sam was back to normal for a few minutes. He just took it in. Sam. The monstrous blade almost seemed to be calling for another kill.

"Hey, it's over. He's dead. Drop the blade. It's over." Sam was in his face. Dean couldn't really look away. He didn't want to. Did he? "Dean!" Their eyes met. The knife hit the floor.

The knife hit the floor.

"Dean," Cas said, coming up. "Are you alright?"

He nodded, still unable to shake the feeling in his right arm. He was glad the First Blade was no longer in his grip. Dean tried to hide a shiver. "I'm fine."

The brothers' eyes met again. "Are you sure?" Sam asked.

He chuckled. "Are you kidding me? Do you even know what the hell happened to you?"

Sam's gaze shifted uneasily. "They filled me in."

Crowley raised a hand from the back of the room, a pleased look on his face from making things awkward.

Dean nodded, not entirely sure of what to say. "Well, it's good to have you back." He gave Sam a pat on the back and led the three towards the front door.

As they were picking their way back through the forest towards the Impala, Dean slowly fell into step behind Crowley and Sam, beside Cas. Sam noticed. Crowley might have seen it, but who knew with him. Castiel was as oblivious to human intentions as ever. Dean knew, though he would never say it, that he was glad things seemed normal again after the brothers' falling out. He hated the nagging feeling of letting his brother down. Which he just had- again. What else was new?

"Hey, Cas." Dean looked up with a small smile and brought a hand to the angel's shoulder for a second. "Thanks for looking out for him. I should have been there."

Cas gave him the Understanding Eyes with a slight tilt of his head. "It wasn't your fault, Dean."

He nodded, though not entirely in agreement. "Yeah… I'm just glad you're here, man. Even when we’re not working together, you’ve got our backs." Fantasies that had floated around his mind during the last night returned full-force. If Sam had been on a hunt alone when the spell hit, Dean might never have found his brother again. "I'm not sure what would have happened if you weren't there, caring for him like some crazy mom."

Cas smiled lightly as he stepped over a huge branch. "I suppose you owe me. He was not easy to look after."

Sam looked back with a ‘hey!’. It looked like he intended to say more, but Crowley had stopped and turned around.

"You may want to see this, Musketeers," Crowley said almost gleefully as they got to the edge of the road.

Dean immediately felt himself groaning. The doors to the Impala were open, and he and Sam dashed over. The leather was ripped, things were trashed; Dean closed the backseat door. "Getting their dirty mitts all over my…" He then noticed the Enochian letters keyed onto the polished doors. _There_ was a nostril flare no one could forget.


End file.
